Chapter 5: CHAPTER 4

You're too mean, I don't like you

Fuck you, anyway

You make me wanna scream at the top of my lungs

- Afraid, The Neighbourhood

The opportunity to talk to Quinn again presented itself to Ellie earlier than she had anticipated.

The next day, heavy snowfall made Ellie stay at home for the day. The snow fell so thickly that it was difficult to see the mountains protruding against the white sky. Nobody had bothered to shovel away the snow in the driveway this day, as all the work would be null and void in a matter of minutes. Of course, Quinn was not as squeamish as Ellie was and the cold did not bother her. She had left in the morning, skis in one hand and phone in the other to meet up with her friends. Most of the adults had left as well, the dads' to take some pictures and Quinn's mom to teach at school. Ellie's mom had stayed home to categorize some of yesterday's finds and Ellie had spent her day helping her, reading, listening to music — basically being bored out of her mind.

In the evening, the adults had collectively decided to eat at the small restaurant in town since no one was too keen on cooking and the fridge was almost empty. The snowfall had stopped about an hour ago but now a foot of new snow was making it difficult to even walk across the driveway, let alone walk down the whole street just to buy some groceries.

After making a quick phonemail to confirm that there were still tables available, everyone quickly threw on their jackets and they hurried across the street.

The restaurant was reasonably full, a few tables occupied by families or couples and the buzz of different conversations filled the air. The interior was very cozy, with furniture made of dark wood with red upholstery and golden details. Golden light made the big room feel cozy and comfortable and the heating was on such a high level that everyone immediately ripped off their jackets only seconds after entering.

It was Fiona who welcomed them, this time not in skiing clothes but in black jeans and an apron with the dinner's name embroidered on her chest. The back of sweatshirt had some Chinese calligraphy on it, probably the same name in Chinese. She led them to a table at the back of the restaurant and handed them the menu when everyone had sat down. The table was round and had a rotatable plate in the middle, with two tangled dragons drawn on the wood. Ellie sat down between her parents', which was — coincidentally — right opposite of Quinn. The blonde girl did not even look at Ellie once, she immediately hid behind her menu and then either looked slightly to the right or to the left.

Fiona, who probably had a very busy evening, considering that there was no other waiter present, brought a small bowl with some prawn crackers.

"Can I get you something to drink already?" She asked, pulling her phone from the back pocket of her jeans to write down the orders.

"I'll take a white wine," began Ellie's mom, "the Pino Grigio, please."

"Oh, me too," said Janet, looking at the rest of the table with a slightly tilted head, "should we just order a bottle for all of us? Unless you lot want something else."

"I'll just take a glass of water," Ellie said. She did not really like the taste of wine and also did not want to get tipsy or (in the worst case) drunk.

"I'll have a coke," Quinn said, closing the card with a soft slap.

"Alright, I'll be right back with your drinks then," Fiona smiled at the group, "by the way, Quinn, are you scheduled for work tomorrow?"

"Yes, and for the weekend as well."

While they waited for their orders, the conversation turned to Ellie's hometown and their lives in Jacksonville. While the adults' and Ellie were talking and chatting along, Quinn just sipped her drink quietly, her face resembling an expression of sour boredom. Whenever Ellie tried to make eye contact with her, the other girl would look away, completely ignoring Ellie and everything she said during the conversation. Her weird behavior probably did not go unnoticed by the others' but nobody reacted or said anything.

"I need to go to the bathroom," Quinn suddenly announced, quickly getting up and walking towards the entrance-area. After a short silence, Ellie got up from her seat as well. She could use this opportunity to talk to Quinn again!

"Me too... um... where is the bathroom?"

"Just towards the exit, down the hallway next to the kitchen," Philip explained. Ellie thanked him briefly before she hurried to catch up with Quinn. When she entered the bathroom, only one of the two stalls was occupied. Not wanting to miss Quinn, Ellie decided to wait by the sinks.

Out of habit, she looked at herself in the big mirror, fiddling with the hoodie she could have sworn had not been so tight when she had bought it. Maybe it was just the color that was not too flattering, combined with her olive skin-tone. Did the turtleneck make it look like she had a double chin?

"What are you doing here?"

Startled, Ellie spun around. She had not even noticed the flushing of the toilet and now Quinn was standing in the doorframe of the cubicle, arms crossed in front of her chest. Ellie thought about replying with a snarky 'using the restroom' but decided not to make things more difficult than they already were.

"I wanted to talk to you again," she confessed, leading Quinn to make an annoyed groan.

"Why?" Quinn replied, coming out of the cubicle to wash her hands.

"Well, I..." the question caught Ellie off guard and she cleared her throat because she continued, probably speaking way too fast, "I just wanted to tell you that you don't have to feel obligated to be friends with me or anything. I understand that it's not easy for you to have me constantly invade your privacy and I don't want to cause any problems. It would be great if we could get along but... I'd also settle for peaceful coexistence, if you know what I mean."

"Was that everything you wanted to say?" Quinn asked after a short pause.

"Uh... yeah, kind of..."

"Great, then you can stop bothering me now," Quinn dried her hands with a paper towel and then turned to Ellie, her green eyes cold as ice, "I don't care what you want. I'm not annoying you all day so I would appreciate it if you could just leave me alone, too. I don't want to be friends with you, I don't want you living under my roof but sadly, that is not my decision to make. So as long as you eat our food and sleep in our bed, you can keep your mouth shut around me. Is that too much to ask?"

Without waiting for Ellie to answer, Quinn rushed out of the door. Ellie stayed right where she was, staring at the spot where the other girl had stood just a second before. Slowly, she felt a familiar burn behind her eyes and angrily rubbed her hand over her face to prevent herself from crying in a public bathroom. What was she doing wrong?

While her mind was racing about why Quinn disliked her so much, Ellie slowly moved to stand in front of the sink. She splashed her face with cold water, took a few deep breaths and then went back to the table with her lips tightly pressed together.

"Did you find the bathroom?" Her dad asked in a joking manner, "You were gone for ages."

"Yeah," Ellie replied as cheery as possible, cringing at how wobbly her voice still sounded. She sat down and dug right into the food that had since been served. She had ordered a dish with fish, vegetables and Chineses black beans but she did not really like it. The scene that had taken place in the bathroom had spoiled her appetite. Quinn did not look much better. Her eyebrows were pulled together and she looked grumpy, merely playing around with the vegan Sushi she had ordered. Surely their parents' would be able to piece two and two together now and notice that something had happened in the restroom while both girls were gone.

Or maybe they just thought they were both on their period and generally in a bad mood.

Ellie was more than happy to see that Quinn left again the next morning. She had loudly announced that she was meeting Dash in Lone Pine and that they would spend all day together. When the door fell shut behind Quinn, Ellie let out a breath she had been holding all morning. She had tried not to act too obnoxious in front of her host but also did not want to offend anyone else, which resulted in a constant switch between being too chatty and not saying anything at all.

Yet again, she was all alone at home and after a few hours of trying to interact with a sleepy Pasta and re-reading the books she had brought, Ellie decided to take another stroll through the village. She thought about what would offend Quinn more: if she took Pasta with her or left him at home by himself. Without further ado, Ellie put the grumpy dog in his little red jacket and carried him outside. Had she set him down on the floor, Pasta would have probably been swallowed by the masses of snow on the ground. Over night, it had snowed again and Ellie was finding it difficult to even walk. Should she maybe shovel away the snow to do her hosts a favor? Surely, Philip and Janet would appreciate a little help. Ellie looked around but could not find a trace of the snow shovel so she shrugged and made her way down the driveway — the stairs seemed a little too dangerous to her today — with Pasta under her arm like a wheezing, slightly slobbering purse.

Ellie would have rather stayed at home the whole day, cuddled up on her bed with a cup of tea and an interesting book to read but the problem was that she did not have any. The two books that she had brought were good, yes, but she had already read them at least twice and was desperately in need of new reading material. Janet had told her that there was a bookshop in Frostfields and if she did not find anything interesting, she always had the possibility of going to Lone Pine and trying to find another shop over there.

When she had reached the road, Ellie looked around, searching for any sign of a nearby bookstore. To no avail. Slowly, she began walking down the street, looking to her right and left to hopefully spot any sign of where she would find the praised shop she was looking for. She left the doctor's office on the other side of the road behind, slowly walking past the driveway that led to Mister Saunders house and shop. Surely he also sold books, so maybe Ellie could also buy from him. On the other hand side, she was not too keen on reading old poems or magazines about housekeeping for the rest of her stay.

Ellie stopped for a moment, trying to catch her breath. Walking in deep snow was exhausting because she either had to work against the heavy masses with her legs and push them out of the way or lift her legs up quite high. Apparently, nobody bothered to clean the sidewalk in this town — if there even was one, it was impossible to tell beneath all the snow. Still, Ellie kept walking and sooner than later, she had reached a point from which she could see to the end of the village. To her left was the supermarket but besides that and a few residential houses, nothing was left.

Helplessly, Ellie turned around, trying to make out where that damed bookshop was. Had Quinn been the one to tell her about it, she perhaps would have suspected a lie but since it had been Janet she did believe that there was a store somewhere — she just had to find it. Maybe she should go to the supermarket and ask?

When Pasta in her arms moved and let out a strangled sneeze, she decided against it. They probably would not let her in together with the dog and she also did not want to embarrass herself. She turned back around, facing the way she had just came from. At least, walking back was easier because she already cleared a small path. When she had almost reached the house again, Ellie looked around one last time, feeling a little disappointed. Still, she saw nothing but snow and — oh!

Between two houses, one of them being the doctor's office and the other one a bigger wooden building, right across the street from where she lived, Ellie spotted a driveway that led to some other houses. One of them was halfway hidden behind the wooden building in front of it and she probably would have missed it, if it had not been for the man who was arranging a sign right outside the door.

On that sign, too big to oversee it, was the depiction of a book, drawn with chalkboard onto the dark background. Ellie sighed with relief and looked both ways before crossing the street, walking up the driveway towards the shop. Now that she knew where to look, it seemed impossible not to notice the bookshop. It was small, yes, but its sheer look got her attention.

The building was very, very small and made of thick wooden beams that had darkened with the years. The roof was almost black, the door a dark shadow. Through tiny windows, she could spot shelves inside the shop, filled with books. The building was not necessarily friendly looking but it had a charm to it that drew Ellie towards the hut.

When the man outside the door heard her footsteps, he turned around as quickly as his heavy stature allowed him to. He was dressed in a woolen sweater and big boots, had red hair and a friendly face with reddened cheeks.

"Hello," he greeted Ellie with a smile when she was within earshot, "isn't that Pasta? The Reynolds' dog?"

Ellie looked down at Pasta who started wagging his little tail, he seemed to know the man.

"Yes, he is," she confirmed, "my family and I are staying with them for a little while. Are you the owner of the bookshop?"

"Sure am," the man nodded, his face lighting up in a proud smile, "can I interest you in a few of my copies?"

Ellie nodded and the man motioned for her to go inside the shop, closing the door behind the both of them.

The inside was similar to what the building looked like from the outside, even though the small windows let in more light than expected: dark walls with shelves made out of black wood; books filling every inch of the house. The shelves stood so close together that the owner had to move sideways in between them, huffing and puffing and sucking in his stomach. He finally came to a stop in a corner of the shop that was almost invisible from where Ellie was standing at the door, sitting down on a green armchair behind a makeshift register. The register was just two smaller shelves with a wooden board connecting them like a tabletop and the man had a hard time squeezing his knees into the tight space.

"Feel free to take a look around," the owner told Ellie, "I know most of the books by heart so if you'd like to ask an expert about wether you should read a certain one, I'm right here."

Ellie nodded and thanked the man, curiously looking at all the shelves. Little golden metal plates glued to the wood had information about what kind of books were on that particular board. 'Graphic Novels', 'Science Fiction', 'autobiographies', 'guides', 'recipes'; the list was endless. Ellie stopped in front of the shelf with romance novels, studying the books' backs and occasionally pulling one out to read the blurb. She was pleasantly surprised to see that some of the books focused on non-heterosexual love stories. Ellie mostly found that few bookstores had books like that but that they were usually more interesting than the ones about straight couples.

Debating wether to risk it all and walk up to the owner with a handful of lesbian love stories, some of them also somewhat graphic, Ellie did not notice said owner sneaking up on her. Well, he was not really sneaking as he had a hard time moving between the books without knocking some of them off their shelves.

"Find anything you like?" He asked, smiling broadly at Ellie.

"Um... not yet, no," Ellie said, quickly putting the books she had been holding back onto the shelf.

"I can show you some of my favorites," the owner offered, "just tell me what you like to read and I'll see what I can do."

Deciding that 'angsty romances about stupid teenagers in love with their best friend of the same gender' was not a good answer to give, Ellie vaguely gestured towards the shelf she was standing in front of.

"I like romances," she said, "but fiction in general is a good start."

"Okay..." the owner looked at the shelves, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, "are you into classics?"

"I read most of them in school," Ellie shrugged.

"Alright, so no classics..." again, the red-haired man rubbed his chin before pulling a few books from the shelf and giving them to Ellie, "have a look at those, there should be something to your liking. I've read all of them and they're great."

"Which one is the best? In your opinion?" Ellie asked, looking at the books she had been handed.

"This one right here," he pointed at one of the books, "definitely."

"Thank you so much," Ellie smiled at the owner who returned the smile and then squeezed past the shelf back to his little corner. Ellie decided to buy the book he had recommended as well as two of the others' she was holding. She could always come back for more, she just needed to make sure all of the books would fit in her suitcase when it was time to return home.

Juggling with the three books and Pasta who seemed to have gotten quite comfortable in her arms, Ellie walked up to the register and put down the three books.

"Great choice," the owner praised, "that will be 41 bucks and 85 cents."

Ellie took out her wallet, looking at the only $50 Canadian she had.

"Can I pay by card?" She asked, already knowing what the answer would be. The owner laughed and shook his head.

"Sorry but we're lucky that we have wifi out here. I'm afraid you'll have to pay cash."

Three minutes later, Ellie left the bookshop, a plastic bag with her books in one hand and Pasta in the other. Since all she had to do to get home was walk across the street, she arrived at her hosts' house rather quickly. After putting Pasta down so he could pee, Ellie went inside and undressed the both of them. With a cup of tea and one of her new books, she sat down at her desk in front of the big window and started to read.

When Quinn returned that evening, she was in an even worse mood than she had been the past few days. This time though, it was different. She did not speak to anyone, disappearing into her room immediately after coming home. As the two girls walked past each other in the hallway by accident, Ellie could have sworn Quinn's eyes were red and her face blotchy. She also did not come to eat dinner with the rest of them, saying she had already eaten with Dash and his family.

Ellie did not complain as the atmosphere at the dining table was more peaceful than it had been since the day she had arrived. Everyone was talking happily, sharing things about their day and the two biologists excitedly showed what photos they had taken that day. Ellie let her dad explain all their work progress to her, rather because of her love for him than out of genuine interest.

"What did you do today?" Her dad asked when he was done showing his photographs.

"Not much," Ellie shrugged, "I just went to buy some books and then read all afternoon."

"Oh, so you met Mister Bishop?" Janet asked as she gathered the plates to carry them into the kitchen.

"Is that the name of the owner?" Ellie put two and two together, "Yes, he recommended me some books but other than that, we didn't talk much."

"Yeah, that sounds like him," Janet chuckled, "he's a nice guy, maybe a little odd — but then again, who isn't? Sometimes I get the feeling that he loves those books more than he loves his own daughter."

"He has a daughter?" Ellie asked curiously. Mister Bishop did not seem like the type of person to have children or a wife, more like a friendly loner.

"Yes, he has a girl around your age," Janet answered, "Lillian, she's friends with Quinn."

"That's his daughter?"

"Yeah, did you meet her yet?"

"She visited Quinn a couple of days ago, together with a couple of other people," Ellie explained shortly. Now that she thought about it, the two did have some similarities: the red hair and the freckles, maybe also their friendly nature. Lillian was just a lot more energetic than her calmer father.

"Lillian is a very nice girl," Philip chimed in, nodding to give his words more emphasis, "always very polite. She even helps her dad in his shop sometimes even though I think she doesn't like books that much."

"What about her mother?" Ellie asked.

"Left years ago," Philip shrugged, "she was from Lone Pine and moved away shortly after Lillian was born. I haven't heard anything from her since — even before, she was never too keen on talking to anybody."

"What about the others?" Ellie asked after processing what she had just heard. She was interested to know more about the village she was staying in.

"Well, you met Fiona — also one of Quinn's friends — yesterday at the restaurant," Janet said while she was washing the dishes, "her parents' are the owners. Her mom is Chinese. And then there's the doctor in town. Him and his wife divorced a couple of years ago, she lives a few houses down the road and he moved to Lone Pine. Collin, their son, lives with her still — and he's also friends with Quinn."

"Yes, I met all of them," Ellie nodded, "what about her boyfriend... Dash, is it?"

"Yes, his name's Dash," Philip answered, "nice guy, lives in Lone Pine with his family. They met in School."

"Would you like to know more about the people in the village?" Janet offered helpfully, dried her hands with a towel and came over to the dining table where Ellie was still sitting, "We've lived her for a long time and know most of the villagers."

"Sure!"

"Alright, let's see..." Janet said, probably thinking about where to begin, "our direct neighbor is Mister Saunders, he owns a little antique shop. Next to him is Collin's house and in between them, in second row, is a small café — I think the owner also lives back there."

Ellie noticed that Janet wrinkled her nose a little as she said 'the owner'. Maybe whoever owned the cafe was someone she did not get along with.

"Then there are Misses Baxter and the Marshalls, they are a little older and have lived here their entire lives. Misses Baxter barely gets by on her own anymore so the Harringtons buy groceries for her and help her with some things. They own the small farm and have lots of cows."

Ellie nodded. She remembered seeing a bigger building that looked like a stable or barn on her way to the supermarket the other day.

"On the other side of the road are mostly people who haven't lived here for that long yet," Janet continued, "we don't really know most of them. Except for Mister Russell, who is in charge of the lift in town and of course, Fiona's and Lillian's families. We also have some vacation homes here and there, they all belong to the Harringtons'."

Ellie nodded again, a little overwhelmed by the amount of information she had received.

"Most people here are very friendly," Philip said with a smile, "just smile and wave and they'll welcome you with open arms."

______

The plot thickens 🤓

Do you think there's a reason why Quinn hates Ellie so much (a VALID reason)?